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Roundup: Marine Le Pen enjoy gains in French presidential campaign

Xinhua, February 22, 2017 Adjust font size:

As the campaigns for the French presidential elections go on, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen has enjoyed gains in the polls.

The last daily poll PresiTrack from OpinionWay for ORPI, "Les Echos" and Radio Classique published on Monday, reinforced the impression that the leader of the National Front (FN) party continues to climb.

Marine Le Pen is not only be assured to come out on top in the first round of elections on April 23, but she notably improved her chances for the second round on May 7.

According to this poll, she has been closing the gap in the event of a second vote, whether this would mean facing off against Emmanuel Macron or Francois Fillon.

In a contest against Macron, the leader of En Marche and the former economy minister, Le Pen would receive 42 percent of the vote in contrast to Macron's 58 percent.

In the second case, the Republican Party candidate Fillon, who was affected by a scandal on whether or not his wife was paid for a job she didn't do when he was prime minister, would only win 56 percent of the vote against 44 percent for Le Pen.

Nevertheless, she had formerly only been estimated to win 35 percent of the vote in the case of a second round against Macron and 39 percent in a duel against Fillon.

According to the latest poll from CEVIPOF (the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po), the FN vote has also gained ground among civil servants, traditionally the constituency of the moderate left.

FN support is also growing in other public functions, underlined Luc Rouban, director of research at CNRS, at Sciences Po.

The director of opinion and politics at OpinionWay, Frederic Micheau, explained this gain by the far-right candidate as "a good sequence in her campaign and by the foundering of her rivals."

"The clashes in the Paris suburbs and social tensions are news items that favor the essence of the FN. In addition to that, her principal adversaries are weathering a difficult period," he summarized.

But Fillon has maintained significant support at the heart of his electoral base: 70 percent of his constituency would like him to maintain his candidacy.

Regarding Macron, who, as of today, is in no way assured a place in the second round. Many political analysts are wondering how he will be able to rally the traditional left, ideologically opposed to his unabashed liberalism. Endit